Harder Drive: Hard drives we didn't want or need

suckerpinch · 2.1M views · 2022-04-10 · 36:47

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Overview

Tom7 (suckerpinch) builds and evaluates a series of absurd hard drives, including storage made from ping packets across the internet. The video accompanies his paper and mixes deep technical hacking with comedic storytelling.

On Hacker News

HN treats it as a favorite example of silly but educational computer science, recommended often when threads touch odd storage hacks.

Recommended by 12 HN people across 9 months · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Hardware (other)Networking & internet infrastructure Stand-up & sketch comedy

What people said

godelski · 2025-03 · Strong recommendation
> harder drive Here's the direct YouTube link[0] I'd * HIGHLY* recommend this video to anyone here. It is exactly that fun silly computer science stuff where you also learn a shit ton. His channel is full of this stuff. Don't ask why, ask why not Is essentially the motto of his channel, and it is the best. Leads to lots of innovations and I think we all should encourage more of this kind of stuff. [0] [VIDEO]
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mk_stjames · 2023-12 · Strong recommendation
This idea is covered during the first part of one of my favorite Tom7 videos. If this comment is the first you are hearing of Tom7... strap in and enjoy: [VIDEO]
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alserio · 2023-07 · Strong recommendation
As the other commenter said, everything on his channel is gold. Just the other day I was rewatching "Automated 3dfication of Nintendo games" [LINK] and "Harder Drives" [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by suckerpinch, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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